Hold Time
by ladyoftheknightley
Summary: It's the day before the events at Malfoy Manor, and all is quiet at Shell Cottage. Bill/Fleur missing moment from DH, for hpshipweeks. UPDATE: A semi-sequel, where the two newlyweds have to learn how to share their home with some of the wizarding world's most wanted.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** This all belongs to JKR (and is not a prequel), and thanks to diva-gonzo for the prompt :) **Trigger warning** for death mentions.

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Bill was walking passed the open door to the living room when what he saw there caught his eye, so he paused and retraced his steps. "Are you feeling quite yourself?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

His wife was building up a stack of cards that was almost as tall as he was, using her wand to construct a twisted tower that looked very like the turrets of Hogwarts. Apart from when they had once played strip poker (he had lost spectacularly), he didn't think he'd ever seen her pick up a playing card in his life before. "I am _bored_ ," she said with feeling. "Bored, bored, bored!"

"Well, thank you very much," Bill replied, mildly insulted. "I thought we had to wait until at least a year of marriage had gone by before we no longer entertained each other."

"Send me the divorce papers and I shall sign zhem at once," she said haughtily.

"Do it and I'll knock over your tower," he said, flopping down in the sofa opposite her.

Fleur, levitating a card up to the very top, paused and looked outraged. "You would not _dare_. It ees my one source of entertainment because my 'usband ees too old and boring to entertain me." With a flourish, the card landed in position. She looked at her artfully constructed tower, and sighed.

Bill looked at her ruefully. "What do you want to do?" he asked.

"I want," she began excitedly, then stopped. "I want," she said again, sounding somewhat sheepish. "Don't laugh. I want to go to work."

He did laugh, but it was a small snort of sympathy. "Me, too. Some normality would be nice, wouldn't it?"

About a month ago, they had both had to leave the bank for good—at least temporarily. The new regime had finally made it clear that it would not tolerate any part-humans working at Gringotts, and as Fleur was part-Veela and Bill, though not a werewolf, looked like he was, they had been prime targets. The goblins were still there, of course, but until Voldemort grew more powerful, he wasn't able to fully take them on, especially as many had sided with him. They both worked in separate departments, doing very different jobs, but along with a few others, including a terrified old muggleborn woman who worked in HR, they had been marched out of the building one rainy Tuesday and told not to return.

Bill had tried, and had been lucky to escape with his life.

Fleur had helped the muggleborn woman to escape to France two weeks ago, but since then they had had no contact with anyone at the bank. She was particularly worried about her friend Annie, whom she had heard nothing from for six weeks. Annie's mother was Irish, though, and Fleur was hoping that she, too, had escaped across the sea. It was easier than trying to entertain any other possibility.

And so she occupied her days with pointless activities, like building card towers, to give herself something—anything—else to think about for a moment.

"Normality," she sighed. "I should like," she continued after a moment, "to go to the shops—not for clothing, I do not need anyzhing to make me more beautiful, of course—but the food shops, the library and so on, without 'aving to look over my shoulder for evil every moment. Very much I should like zhat. And I should like not to 'ave to construct the wards outside our 'ouse, so we are not killed in our beds. And I should like to turn on the radio and 'ear zhem say 'today, all the news ees good. Everyzhing ees wonderful. Now listen to a nice song'."

"You know that the nice song would be Celestina Warbeck, though," Bill replied.

"Bah!" she exclaimed.

He laughed. "If you're bored, I could invite my mother round and tell her to bring her records. I'm sure you'd both like that!" Fleur said something in French that he couldn't translate, but was sure was very rude. "What would your mother say?!" he added, mock-scandalised.

"She would understand if she too 'eard zhat...caterwauling!"

"That's a big word, I'm impressed!" Fleur flung a cushion at him, narrowly missing her card tower, and he laughed, catching it. She pretended to sulk for a moment, before noticing that his expression had faded into one of wistfulness.

"Bill? What ees it?"

"Do you really want all that? A job, a house, a proper life, not this madness, I mean?" he asked.

"Very much so," she nodded. "But I know zhat if we wait, if we work for the Order, it will come."

"We shouldn't have to wait, though," he said. "We could go to France tonight, you could have that and more by mid-week. What do you think?"

She smiled sadly and shook her head. "No," she said. "Because you will not go, and I will not leave you. Let's not argue," she said, as he opened his mouth. "You know zhat I speak the truth. We do not know 'ow much longer France will be safe. And if it remains so—you are too stubborn to leave your family."

"And you are too stubborn to leave me," he sighed. "What a fool you were to marry me."

"I am no fool, Bill Weasley," she said, holding his gaze.

He smiled at that. "I know. Maybe I am the fool. The luckiest fool in all the world..." They both looked out of the window of their lovely cottage, at the beautiful view before them, both wanting nothing more than to escape it for just five minutes.

After a moment, he reached out, knocking down her careful constructed tower by tweaking one card ever so slightly. She disappeared from view for a moment, in the fluttering cards, then reappeared, face utterly and completely outraged. " _You_!" she exploded, clearly too cross to come up with an expletive in English or French.

She launched herself at him, landing on top of him on the sofa, trying to tickle any part of him she could. Not for the first time, he regretted telling her that particular weakness. It did not take much for him to overpower her: she may have been his equal in a duel, but physically he was the much stronger of the two, and he could pin her down easily. Not that she usually complained about _that_.

"Let me go!" she protested feebly, snuggling into his side.

"Never," he promised, and he kissed her. It still felt, every time, like the first time.

It might have gone further—would have gone further, for they were a newly married couple stuck at home with literally nothing to do—but just as she shifted on top of him, his father's Patronus entered the room. Immediately, they both straightened up, wands out, already on high alert.

" _Rumours are swirling that something big is occurring_ ," his Dad's voice said. Fleur reached out and squeezed his hand tight, but she didn't take her eyes off the weasel. " _We don't know anything more yet, but it's likely you'll both be needed. Stay alert tonight, and keep in touch. Be safe._ "

The weasel vanished, and they both exhaled as one. "What do you think ees happening?" Fleur asked. Bill shook his head.

The last time such a message had come through, it was because Death Eaters had attacked and killed six muggles in Godric's Hollow. The time before had been when Kingsley Shaklebolt had been lucky to escape with his life, after they had raided his house. Clearly, Bill's immediate family were safe—though who knew what was going on with Ron these days—but that was little comfort, without knowing what could happen next, or to whom. But there was little sense in wasting energy panicking.

"I'm going to double-check the wards, make sure we're not at risk of any unwanted visitors," he said, standing up. "I'll send a Patronus back to Dad: message received and understood, get in touch if we're needed."

Fleur nodded. "I shall make us a quick meal," she said. "I know it ees early still, but we may not get a chance later. And we should keep up our strength."

"Good plan," he agreed, leading the way into the kitchen. He was at the backdoor when he stopped, turning, and saw her reaching up to the pans hanging above the cooker, and he crossed the room in two strides, twisting her round to face him and pulling her close. He put his forehead against hers and she ran her hands through his hair, winding them around his ponytail.

"When this is over," he said, his voice low. "We're gonna go away. To France and Egypt and all the other places you want to go to. We're going to live, just us, doing what we want and it's going to be _normal_."

She gave a tiny grin, the corners of her mouth quirking upwards. "I would not call zhat normal," she said. "It sounds...exciting. Exotic. But all zhat travelling is not exactly average..."

"I don't want average," he breathed, looking at her. "But we're gonna do it, then we'll come back here and be safe. Leave the house when we want, and exist together like normal people do." He kissed her then, hard and fast and passionate, because that was what war did: it gave snatched moments to declare everything, in case everything was ripped away a moment later.

"I love you," she answered him. "I love you, I love you, I love you." She said it over and over, in English and French and that language only lovers know, fiercely and gently in one breath.

They had no time; there was never enough time. They both had things to do, tasks to attend in preparation for who knew what. They began, wondering what the coming night might bring. And they prayed, selfishly and selflessly that it would spare the other. There was never enough time.


	2. Chapter 2

**I didn't really plan to write a sequel as such and truth be told you don't even really need to have read the first part of this to understand this part, but enough people asked, and I can never say no to writing these two, so...here we go! Thanks for all your reviews of the first part :)**

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It was raining sideways.

Until she'd moved into their little clifftop cottage in Cornwall, Fleur hadn't even known such a thing was physically possible, but now she'd gathered that sideways rain was not only possible, but frequently occurred in this part of the world. She knew this because she spent so long, these days, staring out of the window waiting for her husband to return and trying not to let her overactive imagination run away with her whilst he was out.

Bill hadn't been attacked. He wasn't lying injured (or worse) somewhere unknown. He hadn't been abducted to be tortured by Death Eaters. He was only at the muggle supermarket, buying food. Totally normal.

She could almost believe it.

Things had been hard enough before Harry, Ron and the rest of them had descended on their house. They hadn't been able to go to work for some months, such was the climate at Gringotts, and they had both been involved in various missions for the Order that kept one or both of them away from home for hours, sometimes whole days at a time. They knew that they were being watched: shadowy figures had lurked in the village for months, eyes following them as they hurried from shop to shop, trying not to let the muggles see the wands they were hiding beneath their clothes, scared that at any moment they'd have to fight for their lives.

Then, in the middle of the night, three total strangers, two teenagers and a very old man had appeared in their back garden, followed almost instantly by Bill's youngest brother and his two best friends, one of whom had been tortured, the other clutching a dead House Elf. Oh, and the goblin, too. Pure adrenaline had kept her going through the chaos and she'd managed to nurse the injured back to health—or at least patch up the most obvious injuried—with little medical knowledge and even fewer resources, all the while convinced that Death Eaters were going to descend upon the house and kill them all.

But somehow, it hadn't happened. Bill had got the rest of his family to safety; they all had to live under a Fidelius Charm, but they were all safe from attack. No Death Eaters had appeared. The injured recovered, though it was taking Mr Ollivander longer than she would have liked to improve. No matter: he would soon be well enough to be transferred to Bill's Auntie Muriel's, and she was more than happy, on this occasion, to defer to her mother-in-law's superior nursing capabilities. She wasn't exactly known for her sympathetic and caring nature.

The missions for the Order had stopped, too—constant coming and going from their home put everyone in danger, and if they were captured there was now the added danger that they may be forced to drink Veritasium and give away Harry's location. That, combined with the fact that their home was now entirely hidden by magic, meant that, bizarrely, they were the safest they'd been for months. It was literally impossible for anyone to find them, so as long as they stayed within the bounds of the cottage, they could not be hurt in any way.

Unfortunately, it was still occasionally necessary for one of them to leave their house to buy food, especially now there were eight humans and one goblin to feed.

This involved one of them Transfiguring their appearance, then disillusioning themselves and walking about a mile away from their property, before apparating away to a random muggle town to purchase food from one of the big, anonymous supermarkets. Being Gringotts employees, they had enough of a grasp of muggle currency to stumble through the transactions; in the end, this was usually the easiest part. Trying to get there and back unassisted, without being followed or alerting the Snatchers who lurked in Tinworth to their presence was much, much harder.

They couldn't even go in pairs, as one of them had to stay at home to guard the cottage and lift the wards when the other returned. It wasn't exactly how she'd imagined her first year of marriage, constantly having to point a wand at her husband and demand he prove his identity every time he arrived home. And it was always her in this role, always her waiting at home for him to return. They'd argued about this once, Fleur demanding to know if he thought she was weak, incapable of fighting like he was. It wasn't fair that he should always be the one to risk his life, leaving the property, even though she was just as capable at magic, at defending herself.

And he'd half laughed at her, and said no, that he didn't think she was weak. "You're much stronger than I am," he'd said. "That's why I ask you to stay at home. Because I could not do it."

Every time he had to leave, she would stand in the living room, one hand on her wand, her body pressed against the French window. It overlooked the garden, beyond which was the lane, and the line of their property. The hedgerow was where their wards stopped, and it marked the place Bill would return.

The others knew to leave her alone when she was in position. That day, the strange girl, Luna, had drifted in to the room then out again, saying nothing, which was unusual for her. Harry had appeared, calling her name, then muttering something about it not mattering, that he'd ask later. She hadn't responded to either of them, hadn't even moved. She knew if she cried out, they'd come running to her aid, even the wandless boy, Dean, though it would mean certain death for him. But she wouldn't let them: if it came to it, she'd buy them time, let them get out, and Bill could—

A sudden movement broke her out of her reverie; a glow growing stronger, and then Bill's patronus burst into the room. "Rain, rain go away," it chanted. Then, "I'm outside. Lift the wards." They set a different password every time he had to leave, and today's had seemed appropriate, given the weather. Satisfied it was him, she concentrated hard and lifted the wards between the two apple trees, the preordained place. She couldn't yet see him; he was still disillusioned, but he sent up red sparks to indicate that he was safe, and she replaced the wards. He removed the disillusionment spell, and worked on magically removing the other disguises they'd put on him as he wound his way down the garden path, levitating several bags of food in front of him.

She rushed into the kitchen, pulling open the back door just as he lost the last of his disguises—a huge handlebar moustache—and revealed his own scarred face. "Are you safe?" she asked. "Did you 'ave any problems?"

He didn't answer at first, placing the carrier bags on the floor and shaking the rain out of his cloak and hair. "They were out of bananas," he said eventually, "so I got extra oranges. And I couldn't remember if you said we needed rice, but I got some anyway."

"That's fine," she said, sensing there was something else.

"And I think I was spotted," he continued heavily. Her heart began to pound. "I walked into the village on my way out, so I could apparate from the other side—the further away from here, the better," he said. "And there were some people in cloaks hanging around near the muggle library. I couldn't get close enough to see anything, but one of them pointed at me, so I went around the back of library—the alleyway between that and the newsagents, you know? Once I was out of sight, I disapparated, but I'd heard them start to follow me so...I don't know. There was no sign of them when I returned to Tinworth later, and I apparated to a few different places to throw them off the trail before I went to the muggle supermarket down in Penzance, so I reckon we're safe, but I wouldn't risk going there again, just in case."

Fleur realised almost absently that she was gripping the back of one of the chairs so hard her knuckles had turned white. She didn't know why; if Death Eaters did arrive at their house, it would make much more sense to be gripping her wand—but if she had to defend her home, her lover, their family and friends with only a kitchen chair, she would. She would make it work.

"I think we're in the clear," Bill was saying now, but his face had not lost its tense, alert look. "Mostly because I reckon that if anything were going to happen because of it, it would've happened by now. They're probably still out looking for me, but they didn't follow me home, they don't know where we are. And even if they did, they can't break through the charm that's hiding us."

"My wards will keep us safe, too," she added, and he nodded.

"Of course," he said. "I think the best thing to do would just to go on as normal. We're as safe as we could be here, and we've got enough food now that we won't need to leave the house for a little while. We should lie low, not tell the kids, carry on as normal—"

"And it will be okay," she said softly. She glanced across the room at him at the same time as he looked up, and their eyes met in a look of mirrored non-belief. She almost panicked then, at the thought of all the maybes and the what ifs and the perhapses, the idea of losing him, of being attacked, of all the could-happens. And then, very slowly and deliberately, as though he could read her mind and knew she needed soothing, he winked at her, and she felt that familiar fire start deep inside her. As long as that could still happen, things perhaps weren't as bleak as they could be.

"Right," Bill said briskly, breaking their moment. "Let's get on with it. Where's this shopping going?" It was a rhetorical question; he moved to begin unpacking in the same moment she did. He, however, had not noticed the puddle of water that had gathered where his cloak had dripped onto the stone floor; he crashed down in a whirl of windmilling arms and loud curses. It was such a perfect slapstick moment, a long fall complete with a second where he nearly made it and almost managed to remain upright, before succumbing and crashing straight down onto his back that she had enough time to wish she'd managed to grab a camera, to preserve the moment of hilarity.

God only knew how much they needed a laugh.

He'd managed to knock into the bags he'd bought in, and a single tin of baked beans rolled out of it and across the stone floor. It seemed to make a very loud noise in the almost total silence, and Fleur bit down on her lip to stop herself laughing out loud. She'd never really seen Bill so graceless before now, never seen him loose that edgy coolness, not even when he was in the hospital having first been injured. Even then, once conscious, he'd managed a sort of suaveness, but now, he'd gone down like a performer in a slapstick sketch, and dammit, it was _funny_.

Several voices shouted down then, asking if everything was alright. The cottage was small, and he'd made a lot of noise. "Everything ees fine!" she called back, and the others seemed satisfied. Certainly, no one came rushing into the room, wands drawn, which was a relief, because Bill was still on the floor, having not moved an inch since he'd gone crashing down.

For a second she was fearful again—had he been hurt?—but then he turned to her and she saw such an overwhelming sadness on his face, such defeat in his eyes, that her heart ached. She rushed over, heedless of the damp and the bags and the mess, kneeling on the floor behind him and helping him into more of an upright position, half lying on her lap, with his head resting against her chest, and for the first time, it felt, she noticed how tired he looked, how bad the dark circles under his eyes were. His scars seemed sharper, too—not in any danger of reopening or becoming infected, as such, but they were more visible than they had been even a few weeks ago, and she understood then more than ever the great strain he must feel, being responsible for his family's safety as the Secret Keeper for his Great-Aunt's house, but also for the safety of Ron and Harry and Hermione, and those two other children, and Mr Ollivander, and even the goblin.

And her.

"I'm so fucking sick of it," he said, and she knew he meant both the sneaking around, the ridiculous pantomime they had to go through just to leave the house to buy groceries, and the war itself, and everything in between.

"I know, darling," she murmured, and she kissed his forehead.

He let out a long sigh, and she wrapped her arms tighter around him, balancing her chin on the top of his head. "I'm just so sick of it," he said again, and she didn't say anything this time, just hummed a little and held him even tighter. What could she possibly say?

They sat together for a long moment, ignoring the damp and hardness of the stone floor, the sounds of other people—some almost strangers—in their home, their sanctuary. It was hard, these days, to get a moment just for _them_ , and if it had to be in a cold puddle on the kitchen floor—well, she would take it.

"I feel like it's never going to end," Bill said dully, staring straight ahead out of the window.

Fleur followed his gaze. The rain was still coming down in sheets, but when she glanced slightly to the right, over the clifftops and out to sea, she could see a faint patch of blue poking through the clouds. She felt her heart lift. " _Au contraire, mon amour_ ," she said. "It ees clearing up already."

He twisted round slightly, frowning, then followed her gaze and saw the clear skies in the distance. She felt him relax, and some of the tension from her own shoulders dissipated in response. And then he sat up properly, twisting around and lifting her up and fully onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her waist, and then he kissed her, properly, as a man kisses his wife. The bags still needed unpacking, and she could hear footsteps on the stairs coming closer, but she didn't care, kissing him back harder and deeper and _more_ , always. Everything else could wait, because he was the only thing that mattered.

She would kiss him now, in the rain and the cold and the fear, but someday soon, she would kiss him in the sun and the warmth and the clear.


End file.
